Episode #23
Pink Tax: Why Is Being a Woman a Premium Subscription Service?
Send us Fan Mail Same brand, same blades, same job. One razor costs more because it's marketed "for her". This week we're unpacking the pink tax: the gendered price gap, the pinkified and shrunken products, and the lifetime bill for being a woman. Sarah went hunting on one of the big two supermarkets' websites and the 'women's' was $6.80 more. But hey, at least it comes with a soap bar. We get into: Pinkification, pinkflation and "pink it and shrink it" Gendered marketing from the clothes aisle to Lego Period products: GST gone in 2019, but affordability is still a real problem The Share the Dignity numbers: 64% of respondents have struggled to afford period products, and 21.75% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander respondents couldn't afford them in the last year, compared with 6.9% of non-Indigenous respondents A 2025 Australian report estimating the pink tax on everyday products at around $4,300 a year per woman, or about $360,000 over a lifetime (and that's before period products, the pay gap and the rest) Why the pink tax is compound interest on patriarchy A teaser for a future episode on women pricing their own work (no, you can't pay for tampons with exposure) What to do: buy as gender neutral as you can, ask "do I actually need the 'for her' version?", and pop an extra pack of pads in the Share the Dignity box at your local supermarket. Partners, this is your episode too. Glimmers: a new species of wild cat found in Bolivia, and a very large orange cat mistaken for a mountain lion. Links: Pink Tax: A Study of Gendered Price Discrimination in Australia 2025 (Karen Bijkersma) . Share the Dignity Bloody Big Survey 2024
